(New York)

The model portfolio world has grown highly confusing over the last few years. The explosion in popularity of models has led to thousands on the market, making it very hard to sort one from another. Luckily, Morningstar has launched a new product to help do just that. Morningstar’s new ratings are on a one to five scale (like their mutual fund ratings) and they have increased coverage recently from 76 models to 139. They are also now covering not just SMA models, but theoretical ones. Morningstar gave only 2 out of 1,500 models its top “gold” rating, and one of the pair was Vanguard’s CORE portfolio. According to Morningstar, CORE has “an extremely appealing price tag along with top notch, highly diversified underlying index funds”.

FINSUM: This rating system will be a great resource for advisors, especially as coverage continues to increase. These scores will be useful not just for investment selection, but also for highlighting their utility and legitimacy to clients.